Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Windows 10 – Mobile Hotspot

A few weeks ago, I was doing a demo on a couple of Alexa skills that I've developed using Amazon Echo Dot. However, the place where I have to do the demo use enterprise class Wi-Fi (it is where after connecting to the Wi-Fi network, we need to authenticate using web browser). Unfortunately, at the moment, as far as I know, Amazon Echo Dot doesn't support enterprise class Wi-Fi. To make matter worse, my cell phone signal was very weak in the meeting room, so I was unable to use my cell phone as hotspot.

Luckily, I have my Windows 10 laptop. Windows 10 has a feature where I can turn my laptop into mobile hotspot. To make it work, I would make sure that my laptop has Internet connection. Before the demo, I would connect my laptop to the Wi-Fi network (and when prompted, I would authenticate myself using the username and password provided by the company). Once I am connected to the Wi-Fi network and have Internet connection, I would then:

On my Windows 10 laptop, go to “Settings”.

Then I would select “Network & Internet”.

On the left navigation area of the “Network & Internet” window, there should be an option for “Mobile hotspot”. I would click on that.

On the “Mobile hotspot” screen, you should see a screen similar to the one below. By default, Windows would already pre-define the mobile hotspot network (SSID) name and password for you. However, you can change them by using the “Edit” button. To turn on the mobile hotspot, near the top of the screen, there is an on/off toggle button, click on that one and it will enable the mobile hotspot.

At this point, you can go to your other device (in my case Alexa app on my mobile phone to configure the Amazon Echo Dot) and configure it to connect to the mobile hotspot that has just been setup on the Windows 10 system.

In my case, the mobile hotspot feature in Windows 10 works great. I was able to demo Alexa skills that I’ve developed on Amazon Echo Dot without any issue on places that use enterprise class Wi-Fi.

Some Observations

Windows 10 seems to be smart enough to detect if the system has wireless (Wi-Fi) capability or not. If the system does not have Wi-Fi card, I would not see the “Mobile hotspot” option under “Settings” – “Network & Internet”.

When I am using VPN connection, I might not be able to enable the mobile hotspot feature

After some period of inactivity on the system, Windows 10 would automatically disabled the mobile hotspot.